All life can be traced back to some single-celled organism in the early Archean sea. Today – nearly 4 billion years later – you and I find ourselves sharing the planet with elephants and whales, and over 8 million other eukaryotic species. Clearly, we’re all interrelated, but are we part of a single and absolute totality, a common being? Are we like the hundreds of different types of cells in our body that are constantly dying and being replaced, part of a complex organism greater than ourselves?

If we could see before the first single-cell organism, and after the last man and woman, only you would remain — you, the Great Face behind, that consciousness whose mode of thinking that contains the world.

Anyone who has witnessed the birth of a child, or watched a bird or turtle hatch from an egg, understands the miraculous nature of the event. A handful of dead material is transformed into a living, conscious creature. It’s true, the atoms – and the elementary particles that make them up – can be traced back to the Big Bang. But the hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining how a qualitative, subjective experience occurs from a physical process at all. There is nothing in modern physics that explains how a group of molecules in your brain creates consciousness. The beauty of a flower, the miracle of falling in love, the taste of a delicious meal, these are a scientific mystery on par with the origins of the universe.

Consciousness is like an embryonic stem cell, the master cell of the body, which – instead of giving rise to muscle, bone and all the other tissues and organs of the body – gives rise to the biodiversity around us, to the entire ecosystem of the planet.

When you think of a living organism, you think of how its parts operate as a unified whole, much like the workings of a fine watch. For instance, the cells in leaves produce food for a plant, converting the energy in sunlight into chemical energy that it can use as food. The cells in its stems and branches transport food and water from the leaves and roots to the whole organism. Of course, instead of branches, we vertebrates have bones for support, and muscles that give us the ability to locomote, to hunt and scavenge for food. This dynamic cellular interrelationship occurs at the interspecies level, as well, not only in our gut but on a planet-wide scale. We oxygen-breathing lifeforms continuously inhale oxygen (O2) and then exhale carbon dioxide (CO2); plants then take in the CO2 and use it in their photosynthesis process and in turn give off or “exhale” oxygen.

But there’s a lot more to it than that. We animals interpret the world using space and time — “sensitive concepts,” which, according to biocentrism, are forms in the mind, not hard, external realities. Indeed, with the advent of quantum mechanics, the old materialistic worldview has started to collapse. Alas! The mass of accumulated evidence – the double-slit experiment, quantum entanglement and the work of quantum logic and Schrodinger’s cat, among others – has the weight of a boulder.

At first glance, it seems bizarre that a frog in the rain forest or a dolphin in the ocean should be directly connected to us. But they are the subjects of the same reality that interested John Bell, the physicist who proposed an experiment, verified by Alain Aspect and his colleagues in 1982, that showed once and for all that at least on a quantum level, what happens locally is affected by nonlocal events. Surely this is what Spinoza predicted when he contended that consciousness cannot exist simply in space and time, and at the same time be aware, as it is, of the interrelations of all parts of space and time.

Our individual separateness in space and time (as, for instance, the apatosaurus and velociraptors of the Jurassic Period, the pandas in China, or the mountain gorillas of East Africa) is, in a sense, illusory. We are all melted together, parts of an organism that transcends the walls of space and time. This is not, you understand, a fanciful metaphor. It is a reality. I have learned, as a biologist and biocentrist, that life is a complex play of cells, some that are around when you’re young, some when you’re old, but that all, regardless of species, are parts of one organism expanding and contracting in space and time in whatever shape and form it can.

“I would say,” said Loren Eiseley, the great anthropologist and natural science writer, “that if ‘dead’ matter has reared up this curious landscape of fiddling crickets, song sparrows, and wondering men, it must be plain even to the most devoted materialist that the matter of which he speaks contains amazing, if not dreadful powers, and may not impossibly be, as [Thomas] Hardy has suggested, ‘but one mask of many worn by the Great Face behind.’”

Eiseley and Hardy were right. If we could see behind the fiddling crickets and song sparrows, before the first single-cell organism, and after the last man and woman, only you would remain — you, the Great Face behind, that consciousness whose mode of thinking contains the frog, the dolphin and the whales. Nay, that contains the world.

Lanza's Paper is the Cover Story of Annalen der Physik, which Published Einstein's Theories of Relativity

In his papers on relativity, Einstein showed that time was relative to the observer. This new paper takes this one step further, arguing that the observer creates it. The paper shows that the intrinsic properties of quantum gravity and matter alone cannot explain the tremendous effectiveness of the emergence of time and the lack of quantum entanglement in our everyday world. Instead, it’s necessary to include the properties of the observer, and in particular, the way we process and remember information.

The quest to unify all of physics into a “the theory of everything” has inspired a host of ideas. Now a pioneer in the field of stem cell research has weighed in with an essay that brings biology and consciousness into the mix.

Lanza featured on the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC’s) Ideas, one of the oldest and most respected radio programs in the world

BEYOND BIOCENTRISM: Rethinking Time, Space, Consciousness, and the Illusion of DeathHost Paul Kennedy has his understanding of reality turned-upside-down by Dr. Robert Lanza in this paradigm-shifting hour. Dr. Lanza provides a compelling argument for consciousness as the basis for the universe, rather than consciousness simply being its by-product.

Reception to Biocentrism by Scientists & Scholars

“… Robert Lanza’s work is a wake-up call to all of us”—David Thompson, Astrophysicist, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

“The heart of [biocentrism], collectively, is correct…So what Lanza says in this book is not new. Then why does Robert have to say it at all? It is because we, the physicists, do NOT say it–or if we do say it, we only whisper it, and in private–furiously blushing as we mouth the words. True, yes; politically correct, hell no! Bless Robert Lanza for creating this book, and bless Bob Berman for not dissuading friend Robert from going ahead with it…Lanza’s remarkable personal story is woven into the book, and is uplifting. You should enjoy this book, and it should help you on your personal journey to understanding.”—Richard Conn Henry, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University

“It is genuinely an exciting piece of work…and coheres with some of the things biology and neuroscience are telling us about the structures of our being. Just as we now know that the sun doesn’t really move but we do (we are the active agents), so it is suggesting that we are the entities that give meaning to the particular configuration of all possible outcomes we call reality.”—Ronald Green, Eunice & Julian Cohen Professor and Director, Ethics Institute, Dartmouth College

“[Biocentrism] takes into account all the knowledge we have gained over the last few centuries…placing in perspective our biologic limitations that have impeded our understanding of greater truths surrounding our existence and the universe around us. This new theory is certain to revolutionize our concepts of the laws of nature for centuries to come.”—Anthony Atala, renowned scientist, W.H. Boyce Professor, Chair, and Director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Wake Forest University School of Medicine

“Having interviewed some of the most brilliant minds in the scientific world, I found Dr. Robert Lanza’s insights into the nature of consciousness original and exciting. His theory of biocentrism is consistent with the most ancient traditions of the world which say that consciousness conceives, governs, and becomes a physical world.”—Deepak Chopra, Bestselling Author, one of the top heroes and icons of the century

“It’s a masterpiece…combines a deep understanding and broad insight into 20th century physics and modern biological science; in so doing, he forces a reappraisal of this hoary epistemological dilemma…Bravo”—Michael Lysaght, Professor and Director, Center for Biomedical Engineering, Brown University

“Now that I have spent a fair amount of time the last few months doing a bit of writing, reading and thinking about this, and enjoying it and watching it come into better focus, And as I go deeper into my Zen practice, And as I am about half way through re-reading Biocentrism, My conclusion about the book Biocentrism is: Holy shit, that’s a really great book!—Ralph Levinson, Professor, University of California, Los Angeles

From physicist Scott M. Tyson’s bookThe Unobservable Universe

“I downloaded a digital copy of [Biocentrism] in the privacy of my home, where no one could observe my buying or reading such a “New Agey” sort of cosmology book. Now, mind you, my motivation was not all that pure. It was my intention to read the book so I could more effectively refute it like a dedicated physicist was expected to. I consider myself to be firmly and exclusively entrenched in the cosmology camp embodied by the likes of Stephen Hawking, Lisa Randall, Brain Greene, and Edward Witten. After all, you know what Julius Caesar said: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” I needed to know what the other camps were thinking so I could better defend my position. It became necessary to penetrate the biocentrism camp.

The book had the completely opposite effect on me. The views that Dr. Lanza presented in this book changed my thinking in ways from which there could never be retreat. Before I had actually finished reading the book, it was abundantly obvious to me that Dr. Lanza’s writings provided me with the pieces of perspective that I had been desperately seeking. Everything I had learned and everything I thought I knew just exploded in my mind and, as possibilities first erupted and then settled down, a completely new understanding emerged. The information I had accumulated in my mind hadn’t changed, but the way I viewed it did— in a really big way.”

I spent a couple of years rolling pennies and eating canned spinach and pasta while I tried to understand the universe.

U.S. News & World Report Cover Story

“…his mentors described him [Lanza] as a “genius,” a “renegade” thinker, even likening him to Einstein.”

“Robert Lanza is the living embodiment of the character played by Matt Damon in the movie Good Will Hunting. Growing up underprivileged in Stoughton, Mass., south of Boston, the young preteen caught the attention of Harvard Medical School researchers when he showed up on the university steps having successfully altered the genetics of chickens in his basement. Over the next decade, he was to be “discovered” and taken under the wing of scientific giants such as psychologist B. F. Skinner, immunologist Jonas Salk, and heart transplant pioneer Christiaan Barnard. His mentors described him as a “genius,” a “renegade” thinker, even likening him to Einstein.”

We’re taught that the universe can be fundamentally divided into two entities: ourselves and that which is outside of us. But you’re not an object — if you divorce one side of the equation from the other you cease to exist.

New experiments suggest part of us exists outside of the physical world. We assume there’s a universe “out there” separate from what we are, and that we play no role in its appearance. Yet experiments show just the opposite.

Ideally, our concepts of nature and God should adapt to our evolving scientific knowledge. Relative to the supreme creator, we humans would be much like the microorganisms we scrutinize under the microscope.

Biocentrism unlocks the cage Western science has unwittingly confined itself. By allowing the observer into the equation opens new approaches to understanding everything from the tiny world of the atom to our views of life and death.

We take physics as a kind of magic and think everything just popped into existence one day out of nothingness. But we’re living through a profound shift in worldview, from the belief that life is an insignificant part of the physical universe, to one in which we’re the origin.

We’re about to be broadsided by the most explosive event in history. But it won’t be rockets that take us the next step. Sometime in the future science life will finally figure out how to escape from its corporeal cage.

Everyone knows that something is screwy with the way we visualize the cosmos. Theories of its origins screech to a halt when they reach the very event of interest — the moment of creation, the “Big Bang.”

If we could see before the first single-cell organism, and after the last man and woman, only you would remain — you, the Great Face behind, that consciousness whose mode of thinking that contains the world.

We think of time and consciousness in human terms. But like us, plants possess receptors, microtubules and sophisticated intercellular systems that likely facilitate a degree of spatio-temporal consciousness.

Did you ever wonder why people like Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson didn’t fare any better than you or I despite all their money, fame, and access to people of wisdom? The answer lies in your own backyard.

It seems natural that someday we’ll make machines that’ll think and act like people. However, for a machine or computer there’s no other principle but physic, and the chemistry of the atoms that compose it.